Chapter 21 Who's Knocking on the Door? Wen Xi—She died smiling right in front of me…
[You listened to some elements of [?], deepening your understanding of [?].
[New god growth path added, trait [???] is being unlocked]
Why is there another bunch of question marks? It's so annoying... Wait, why did she say "again"?
As the broadcast faded into the distance, Du Yu sat up, rubbing his temples. A giant white dove flew past the window, and the silver moon hung high in the sky, its cool light shining on the familiar yet unfamiliar little house, as if a traveler had returned to his old home after many years.
Du Yu shook his head, his fingers touching the bandage wrapped around the back of his head. "Did that mutated beast damage my brain?"
The hunger in his stomach quickly overcame the inexplicable sadness, and Du Yu put on his coat and got up, intending to get some food.
"You should be awake by now. Come and eat."
The girl sat by the campfire in front of the house, half of her face illuminated by the firelight and the other half hidden in darkness, giving her features an eerie quality.
Du Yu inexplicably felt a strong sense of familiarity with that face. He quickened his pace, took the black and red meat skewer that could poison ten mutated cows, and bit into it without hesitation.
The taste needs no further description; Du Yu simply shut down his five senses and swallowed the still writhing, blasphemous chunk of meat in large gulps.
"Ugh, it still gives me the creeps no matter how many times I see it." The girl rubbed her arms, then couldn't resist leaning closer out of curiosity. "This is a newly emerged Fallen Species, is it tasty?"
Du Yu thought for a second, then gave her a dark smile and a thumbs up: "The meat is very good, and it'll burst with juice."
"I want to try everything you've mentioned."
The girl felt both disgusted and longing, and couldn't help but lean closer. Suddenly, she whispered, "Actually, I added something to the meat..."
"What did you add?" Du Yu, completely unaffected, continued chewing and retorted, "Lonely?"
Hahahahahaha.
The girl was overjoyed, leaning on Du Yu's shoulder and laughing so hard her shoulders were shaking. After a long while, she said seriously, "Jokes aside, Du Du, you can't trust us too much."
"What's gotten into you now?"
Seeing Du Yu's disdainful expression, the girl's smile faded, and she looked towards the moon: "You're recovering from your injuries and don't know, Yang the Cripple is dead."
"Yang the Cripple" is clearly a nickname, and code names are only used when referring to someone the two parties in a conversation know each other. But I don't know Yang the Cripple at all!
Du Yu was puzzled, but his body seemed to have its own thoughts: "She's dead? Didn't she just complete her power advancement? When did a high-level Fallen One appear around here?"
The girl shook her finger, her expression enigmatic. "Who said she died at the hands of a degenerate? Yang the Cripple, she was eaten alive by a madman."
"What?"
The days of food scarcity and cannibalism are long gone. Du Yu's pupils constricted, a sense of foreboding rising within him for some unknown reason. The girl's back was to the moon, her face blurred. "The madwoman died in the end. Before she died, she shouted—"
"The moon deceived everyone, the moon devoured everyone, the moon is about to become a god—"
In the darkness, the girl repeated the madman's ramblings, gripping Du Yu's wrist tightly, muttering nervously, "What does she mean? How can the moon lie? And what about the gods?"
Du Yu's ominous premonition reached its peak. The rice bowl crashed to the ground, and a piercing pain shot through her brain. Du Yu covered her head with one hand and the girl's mouth with the other. Her intuition told her that she couldn't let her continue talking, but the girl suddenly disappeared.
Du Yu was startled and turned slightly to meet a pair of amber eyes that were flashing with madness!
The girl appeared behind Du Yu without her noticing, gripping her shoulders tightly with both hands. She leaned down and pressed her face against Du Yu's ear, her voice filled with pleasure as if she had solved some puzzle:
"Hahahaha, I know, Dudu, I know! Only by eating people can one become a god, and all the gods have eaten people!"
An unknown power surged forth, and Du Yu felt as if her soul had temporarily left her body; she could only observe, unable to control her body to make any movement. She felt her head being gently turned and lifted upwards by the girl, a pleasant hum echoing in her ears—a tune that had somehow spread from the wasteland.
One moon is crescent-shaped, one moon is full, and one moon is perfectly square.
"Dudu, look! The moon is so beautiful tonight!"
As the cheerful song played, Du Yu's gaze slowly moved upwards, taking in the distant houses, the thick darkness of night, a few scattered stars, and—
Three moons gently shone in the middle of the sky.
·
Du Yu suddenly stood up, his chest heaving violently, his pupils dilating. He subconsciously walked out of the temple hut and stared blankly at the swirling gray mist in the air for a long time before the horror in his mind gradually faded.
"Young...boss, you're up so early today?"
Tian Yinuo yawned, preparing to go to the kitchen to continue her hand-to-hand combat with the mutated beast, when she was surprised to find Du Yu leaning against the wall, looking up at the sky without moving.
Du Yu looked at the familiar fluorescent red and finally felt like he was back in reality. After exchanging a few pleasantries, he returned to the bedroom, staring intently at the white dove perched beside his pillow. He raised an eyebrow and asked, "Explain yourself?"
She dreamt of her past life, of surviving with her companions in a base. She vaguely remembered that the hilariously funny cripple, Yang, had died from severe injuries sustained in an attack by the Fallen Ones; he wasn't some inexplicably insane madman. In her memory, the base was quickly destroyed, and she and her companions never had that conversation!
"You're spying on my memories?"
[Gulp, 166 would never do such a thing!]
The pigeon that appeared in the dream puffed out its chest and loudly retorted without any hesitation, only explaining under Du Yu's increasingly dangerous gaze, "Accepting those special believers will have some effects, and this dream is one of them."
Last night's wandering in the spirit world took a huge toll on his mental energy. Du Yu ended the wandering before the dream ended, and fell asleep the moment his consciousness returned to his body.
Upon waking, Du Yu was still troubled by strange dreams. Before she could even look at her gains from the previous night, she took out the [Dream Petri Dish] from her backpack and noticed the change in its appearance.
The 【Dream Petri Dish】is no longer the ordinary iron basin from a dream, but rather resembles a rustic, semi-cylindrical fish tank. A dark red base supports a transparent glass dish with four sides that curve upwards, its edges becoming rounded. A pale purple mist shrouds the top of the petri dish, tinging the transparent liquid within with a faint purple hue. Inside the dish, hundreds of light spots of varying sizes undulate, swimming and playing like small fish.
166 suggests that the environment of the divine realm is more conducive to the recovery of consciousness fragments, so Du Yu casually placed the petri dish on the table beside the bed. It must be said that even ignoring its function, just looking at its appearance, this petri dish can be considered a rare and exquisitely designed ornament.
"The system can also change the appearance of items?"
166 said tactfully, "The spirit world is not affected by the laws of the material world, and the appearance of the synthesized object will be affected by the player's subconscious."
Got it, it means she has no aesthetic sense, that's why the petri dish looks like an iron basin in her dreams.
Du Yu gave a fake smile, and 166 flew over and landed on her shoulder, smoothly changing the subject: "When spirit world items enter the material world, it's not just the appearance of the Guda that changes."
Something seemed to be shimmering in the purple mist above the petri dish. Du Yu felt a strange sense of familiarity from it and curiously clicked on it.
The description of the synthesis for 【Dream Petri Dish】 has an additional line:
[Composite Description:]
A wondrous concoction blessed by the fallen false god [Heartless]. Constant effect: A beautiful dream from which one never awakens, capable of containing a broken soul; a broken soul can slowly heal within the dream.
Influenced by the [? ?] superordinate element, at the junction of the material world and [? ? ?], the holder will randomly trigger the [Precognitive Dream] effect and randomly bring out a soul fragment bound to their faith from the dream. Currently, the only bound faith is: Lord of Listening (Deity)
A precognitive dream? Du Yu recalled the scenes from his dream, thoughtfully opened the game log, and sure enough, there was a record:
The player has completed a journey through the spirit world.
[Player triggers the special effect of the synthesized item: [Precognitive Dream]]
[The player has obtained 1 Soul Fragment from [Premonition Dream]. Would you like to add it to the special crafting ingredient [Dream Petri Dish]?]
That strange dream was actually a premonition? Du Yu looked puzzled. If it was a premonition, why did it specifically choose a scene from the past?
Don't you like this precognitive dream?
166's senses were surprisingly sharp. He paused for a moment, but then felt there was nothing to hide, and said calmly, "It's not that I dislike it, it's just that this dream... made me see a friend I really want to see again, Wen Xi."
[Oh, isn't this a good thing?]
Du Yu rubbed his pigeon-like head, suppressing the melancholy welling up in his heart.
How joyful it is to reunite with old friends in a dream, how desolate it is to wake up and find yourself all alone. Survival in the wasteland is tough; she stumbled through thirty years, filled with regrets and saying goodbye to so many people with no chance of ever meeting again.
When the cataclysm struck, she was having dinner with her college roommates. The disaster came unexpectedly, and she and two of her roommates worked together to kill the mutant. For the next ten years, the three of them wandered the wasteland together. Until, Wen Xi died smiling in front of her.
In the last few years of her life, she rarely spoke, rarely reminisced, and rarely dreamed. But after traveling through time, she saw a familiar face again.
She couldn't explain these complex emotions to a pigeon. After giving a few perfunctory answers, she focused her consciousness on the purple mist on the petri dish, selected the fragment that believed in her, and placed it into the petri dish.
The next moment, Du Yu opened the column for believers as if he had a premonition. Perhaps because the fragment was relatively well preserved, the number of believers jumped from "12" to "13" after it was put in.
Du Yu had no time to pay attention; her gaze was fixed on the bottom of the believer list:
[Believer's Name: Wen Xi]
[Religious Status: Fanatical Believer]
...
"Knock knock".
"Hmph hmph hmph..."
Tian Yinuo hummed a song as she laboriously flipped the pork chop over, and was stunned for a moment when she heard the sound.
"Knock knock..."
"Clang!"
Tian Yinuo suddenly stepped back, knocking over the dish rack, but she didn't have time to pay attention to it. She hurriedly put down the pot and ran towards Du Yu's hut:
Aaaaaaaahh ...
Someone is knocking on the door!!!
-----------------------
Author's Note: Dudu (staring at the name of the resurrected corpse): Ghost Stories
Xiaotian (startled by the knocking): Ghost story
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
